tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jan 29 11:25:15 1996
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Re: Yet another newbie.
>Date: Fri, 26 Jan 1996 19:55:55 -0800
>From: [email protected] (Alan Anderson)
>Adam Winnington (QlojmIt) writes:
>>Greetings All.
>>(A question here, the -wI' means "thing/person that does", so does that mean
>>De' is compute and Cham is fix/repair?? (I'm stretiching "technicnan" here a
>>bit))
>Since neither {De'} nor {cham} appear in the dictionary as verbs, we
>can't assume anything from the meaning of {De'wI'} and {chamwI'}. As
>far as we know, these words can't be broken down into smaller parts to
>be used separately.
Yes, I must agree: you can't back-form with no evidence. After all, by
reasoning like that, it's pretty plain that the verb in English for being
the male parent to someone is "to fath", since a father is one who faths.
And there's the well-known verb "to nake" meaning to remove clothing (since
one whose clothing is removed is said to be naked.) You can't presume like
that.
>>wa'SaDlogh Heghtah nuch
>>
>>I hope means "A coward dies a thousand deaths."
>majQa'!
>(Again, watch the spelling -- it's {HeghtaH}.) The {-taH} suffix puts
>so much more into this phrase than the original English would suggest.
>A simple {wa'SaDlogh Hegh nuch} would be translated about the same, but
>{HeghtaH} indicates a continual dying, without a particular end in sight.
>Either you have an remarkable grasp of the shades of meaning involved,
>or this is an amazing accident. Either way, {qaHoy'qu'}.
Hrm. I think I like "Hegh" better. Somehow dying many times discretely
and the continuous suffix don't quite work together for me.
~mark